Russian TV Is Filled With Images of Bucha’s Dead, Stamped With the Word “Fake”

BECAUSE THE HORRIFYING truth of what happened in Bucha, Ukraine, during the Russian occupation last month is unpalatable to officials in Moscow, the Russian government has invented a lurid fantasy to tell its own people.

For the past week, Russian television, which is under the full control of the government, has presented as fact the fictional version of events crafted by the state — that the bodies of murdered civilians discovered in Bucha last week were planted there after the Russian withdrawal. According to Russian news anchors, correspondents, and pundits, the apparent crime scene discovered after the Russian retreat was a monstrous plot to frame Russian soldiers as war criminals, carried out by Ukraine’s intelligence service and its Western partners.